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As entertainment critic Roger
Ebert once said, "If you disagree with something I write, tell me so, argue
with me, correct me--but don't tell me to shut up. That's not the American way."

I know we have a host of 'why is this important?' responses lurking in wait here, so let's get to the reason they'll need to ignore. He's the first active male athlete to declare his sexuality. All the others came out after they were finished playing. So this is going to be the first immediate test of just how homophobic the NBA is -- when many of the players emerge from a culture where telling someone their actions are gay is the ultimate insult.

Or it would be. But Jason is a free agent this offseason: 34, an aging center from the Wizards. Is every team going to use that as an excuse to not sign him? Possibly not. But couple it with this announcement, and...

Silent collusion would not surprise me. And if he's still playing in November, nor would the world's hardest flagrant fouls. Which doesn't even begin to cover the fan reactions as he travels to red states and -- let's not leave this out -- Charlotte.

What's the other direct line to Jackie Robinson? The possibility of having status as The First turn into record as The First Victim.

Also apparently no one cares if you are gay as long as you stay firmly in the closet and never ever tell anyone about it. Or at least only tell people once you decide you are never setting foot in a gym or playing a sport ever again.

And apparently this now gives him license to behave inappropriately in the locker room. Because we know men generally don't compare body parts, show them off to intimidate others, or do anything else inappropriate in a locker room.

I did add Alphonso Smith and Mike Wallace to my personal boo list, so this at least brought some more of the jerks out of their own closets. Thanks for the helpful hints, guys! And here we have Chris Broussard of ESPN, who feels (among other things, all said on the air) you can't be openly gay and a true Christian because you're automatically and forever an unrepentant sinner. And he also said Jason was in, and I quote, "open rebellion to God." I wonder if he can be openly hateful and employed. Probably -- ESPN's apology wasn't exactly glowing with shame and they just hired Ray Lewis, so their rep is hardly spotless to begin with -- but we all know what he is now too. Let the discrimination begin. Sorry, Chris: your deity loves you, but a lot of other people are going to spit in your face.

(He has since tried to 'clarify' his comments. Too late, bigot. And he said all this in front of LZ Granderson. Honestly, it just keeps getting funnier.)

I found the list of NBA players who tweeted their support to be an interesting one -- as well as who hadn't. (Broussard claims many are on his side. Naturally, he gave no names. What, no martyr creation?) Silence doesn't mean lack of acceptance for every occasion, but the names who have yet to speak may include a few who kept quiet because they knew anything said would create more articles than the original announcement.

Incidentally, given Jason's journeyman status, he's shared a lot of locker rooms. As he put it, this is Three Degrees Of Jason Collins: no one in the NBA can now claim they don't know any gay males.

Nearly called the morning show...while they were generally more on the supportive side there was a "why make a deal out of it". Because as straight people they don't introduce themselves by who they are sleeping with at the start pf every conversation.

Most gay people don't start every conversation with Hey, I'm GA-AY!, either. But usually at some point if they want to be out they are going to have to fill people in to avoid even more awkwardness later. I don't think he's going to write a letter to SI every week to make sure we still know he is gay, still, again.

Also the main male co-host is quite well known for being married, and having very little sexy time issues with his wife. The main female co-host is well known for finally dating a decent guy and they do endless song parodies about her wanting/waiting for a ring.

So I don't think either of them quite understand the I can never tell anyone anything about my loved one, and if we are both in the same place at the same time we have to act like we hardly know each other lest anyone get suspicious.

Good for him, but I don't see this as the watershed event some want to portray it as. He has a 50/50 shot at best of actually playing in the NBA next season. He is at the end of an average to below average career. This is not akin to Jackie Robinson.

ESPN called fourteen NBA teams (all anonymous) and eight of them said they wouldn't consider him due to his decreased stats and the general idea that he's near or at the end of the road. The other six think he has something left in the tank plus he's one of those people whose personality helps cement a team: a natural leader.

One team did say his revelation would have to be considered and discussed internally, but that was the extent of the comment and could have meant anything from 'How many homophobic fans do we have?' through 'We have Chick Fill-A as a sponsor: any questions?'

And yes, this would have been a bigger impact if it came from a star in the prime of his career. LeBron James writes this article and the Internet explodes twice. But someone had to be first. His hand is the one which went up.

I'm just surprised they'd have an anti-bully speech in the first place. There's a lot of churches fighting those laws because it takes away open freedom to attack. (Remember, without First protection, many religious institutions would be reclassified as hate groups.) The Bible says you have to despise them with every breath, so how can the laws of man block that?

But don't worry about their open speaking slot. Chris Broussard should be available.

There's a persistent rumor claiming four or five NFL players were thinking of coming out together in order to spread out the backlash. Also the targeting, as it's got to be a little scary to emerge into a league where people can generally get away with trying to kill you.

Actually, basketball may be the sport with the highest chance of survival. Hockey: puck to the face. Football: helmet to the spine. Baseball: fastball to the skull. At least with hoops, it's generally just body parts flying.

I applaud him for his courage and will applaud even harder if a team hires him knowing that he is gay. That would make quite the statement.Of course, I hope that we soon get to a point where this is a non-story in the sense that everyone thinks it's no big deal if there are players who are gay on their team.

I think one NBA GM is gay, but I don't recall which team. Warriors, maybe... *checks* ...no, Suns: Rick Welts, team president.

Well, that would get screams of 'collusion' from another angle. Also 'conspiracy'. I'd hope it wasn't Phoenix who signed him, but that's just because I'd want him to have a halfway-friendly home court. That particular state is heading towards infrared.

I would like to say "so what", but society isn't there yet so this is a big deal.

Now will he get another job? I think that he is an aging centre and not a star will have more bearing (sp?) than his coming out. Heck, teams seemed to be willing to take a chance on Michael Vick after he came out (of prison ). Maybe a team who is on the fence about his ability will actually take a chance on him to try to get the positive media. (sort of like buying carbon footprint points)

With the competition the way it is, there will be a team who will sign him if he wants to play and can physically hold his own. And he's been in the league a while, so I imagine he is no stranger to low blows and errant elbows, even without any homophobic hostility.

He isn't as superior to his fellow athletes as Jackie was, but the same motivation that guided Robinson’s entry into baseball will decide what happens to him. (Or did anyone actually think that it was civil rights related altruism that ultimately motivated Branch Rickey?) And that is, “does an owner think he can help them win and make more money?”

(And the memory of Kermit Washington and Rudy Tomjanovich! That was as bad as it gets, even considering the occasional compound fracture and testicular obliteration. Kermit should still be rotting jail for that assault).

The fact that Kermit threw The Single Most Perfect Punch In Video-Recorded Human History does not entitle him to triple the assault sentence. (Regardless of how you feel about the man and his action, you have to admit that fracturing someone's skull in such a way as to detach the front -- with one bare-handed impact -- is a pretty impressive feat.) Besides, he's paid for it. He's still paying for it every day.

Back to Jason... at this point in his career, his main skill is the ability to rally a locker room. (Journeyman, but teams have fought not to trade him: he's too good for morale.) He's got some center court presence left and can give you something off the bench. His brother was the master flop artist of their generation and some of that talent carried over. The problem is that you can find most of the assembly dribbling around D-League available on a ten-day. As I see it, it's mainly going to be about his leadership skills -- which gets back to how homophobic the league may truly be -- and how much a team wants that publicity boost from signing him. Some markets would do better than others. I'd hate to see him land in Utah and as said above, Charlotte would be a nightmare.

From an aesthetic point of view, that punch was a thing of beauty. One might say, the perfect punch.

But it was also an over the top, purposeful, and probably premeditated (by a few moments, at least) assault by one of the most intimidating characters in the game at the time (Rudy was also not a small man, a center I think (?), and not unused to getting physical in a game). He and Kermit have shaken hands, for the press at least, but there are a lot of Rocket fans that would still not be unhappy to see Kermit suffer eye for an eye (substitute for that what you will) retribution.

I think I agree point by point about Jason. Except, after watching several seasons of D-league ball as season ticket holder, that talent pool isn’t that deep. I think that inspite of his lesser by comparison skills, that Jason will not face the overt wide spread hatred that Robinson saw. That's pretty obvious, but it does show that society does progress, albeit in a longer time frame that we would like.

I'm going to leave Kermit and Rudy alone and focus on Jason Collins for the moment.

Why is this a big deal? This isn't a young upstart like Jackie Robinson -- most of the players in the NBA know and like Jason Collins. If you wanted to pick the most perfect person to come out, the person who would inspire the least backlash for so doing, Collins -- from Harvard-Westlake HS (the rich private school) in LA and Stanford U., who was engaged to a WNBA pro (and Stanford classmate) for years -- would be the #1 choice from central casting.

Despite Estee's raves, this is nothing more than a dog and pony show. There isn't a place in the NBA where Collins wouldn't be welcomed by his teammates or the fans -- including Utah, where his twin brother Jarron played for almost a decade -- despite his declining skills.

Had this been, say, LeBron, the reaction might be very different. But Jason Collins is so vanilla that even Jarron didn't know about Jason's sexuality until this announcement.

He will not be welcomed by all of his teammates or all of the fans, and some places will be worse than others. As the saying goes, if you're holding out for universal acceptance, please stand by -- forever. He may have less difficulty than some and I'm not sure how anyone feels about 'vanilla' here, but the backlash will show up -- somewhere. Possibly the upper deck, or at least upper management.

I don't know about #1 choice from central casting. Central Casting would have liked to get an All-Star. In fact, Central Casting would like Michael Jordan to be using his second wedding as A Great Big Bearded Lie. And then go back to playing. Tomorrow. Surely the Bulls have an exemption for just such an occasion.

Regardless, Jason is The First. And The First terrifies people -- every time. Because unless they find a way to stop it, The First is followed by The Second -- and beyond.

I heard it would have been Phoenix, but someone had a faith-based objection to letting him hold a pen.

On a related note, I am watching to see what happens with Michael Sams in the NFL draft. And I would not be surprised to see him drafted by a homophobic GM in a red-state market -- with the purpose of breaking him.

There's been Uganda discussion in OT all along, including details on how U.S. evangelicals partially funded and wrote the law in the first place -- because they'd given up on getting it passed in the States and really wanted a truly Christian country on the private map. I'd add a dark note on how TPers are no doubt writing statutes to prevent such rescue immigration, but I don't think they have to. Trying to leave Uganda is probably a crime in itself.

CNN has an interview with Uganda's president. I will not watch it.

As for getting rid of our fundies, they're more likely to move into Russia, which allows you to legally fire someone if they practice a faith you don't like.

Also, more white people.

Sports is important in these matters because sports is how people root for those different than they. Hate the skin color, hate the faith, hate everything and everyone who isn't just like you -- but you still want the Dodgers to win. The most hardcore leave their team behind. For the rest, it's a first step.

And thus the perpetual attempts to slam doors before any opening can be stepped through.

Back on topic... apparently Mr. Sams didn't do too well at the combine yesterday. Clowney did, but no one knows if he cares to keep it up. And one prospect left early because according to him, his deity told him that if he departed, he would get picked by the Seahawks.

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